It’s all an illusion, smoke and mirrors. Your specific life’s conditions have virtually nothing to do with your state of being.
Logically, it would seem that those who have extremely challenging life circumstances would struggle more than those whose life is comparably easy. The opposite is often true. Some who have everything – from the world’s perspective – suffer more than those with nothing. They have nothing external to blame for their suffering. This is the reason many prominent people, or children who have grown up with privilege, commit suicide. With noone and nothing to blame for their emptiness, they feel the full weight of despair.
Regardless of your specific life’s challenges (or perhaps lack of them), your suffering is unnecessary.
Once you recognize that emotional states are fluid, not fixed, you have the power to navigate the ship. Biological mechanisms create chemical reactions in your body. You choose how to interpret those biological responses. A cloud in the sky can be a dragon or a butterfly. The same is true with emotions. Emotion offers the motive power, but you choose the direction.
Journal. Write poetry. Write your stories in a book. Paint. Dance. Smell flowers. Hug someone or something. Express in any way that feels natural to you.
Your life means something. It is nothing less than the natural outpouring of the song that makes the birds sing, causes flowers to bloom, and the sun to radiate. Your heart is made to shine, dear one, and in its glow others are warmed. Do not be tricked into believing that something as small as a single lifetime can ever diminish your essence. Remember the truth of who you are, and in the moment you remember all forms of suffering will immediately dissolve like mist in the light of the sun.
